A writer remembers all of the wonderful snack foods of the 80s, before the label "junk food" ruined everything.

Sometimes you need a break from the craziness of this modern age, which is why we're celebrating nostalgic foods this week at BonAppetit.com.

The frying pan held sizzling oil and five popcorn kernels waiting to explode. The electric coils of the stove’s burner blazed red, and there he was, my brown-eyed, early-bird, eight-year-old son, watching tentatively to make his next move. It was 7 a.m. and I was in desperate need of coffee.

Pop, pop, pop, the kernels ricocheted off the lid. My son carefully grabs the silicone handle and raises the lid nearly above his head. Stoves are not made for little people. He let a bit too much steam escape before dutifully adding the remaining ½ cup of kernels to the pan. He secures the lid with one hand, grabs the handle of the frying pan with the other, and vigorously shakes it in a steady motion until each kernel is covered with the spattering oil.

“Popcorn for breakfast, huh?” I said, trying to sound calm and laid-back, as if it was no big deal that my son turned on the stove to heat oil without thinking to mention it to me or ask my permission. I suppose this is what children do. They begin to grow up the moment we decide to take a shower or walk the dog. I want my kids to feed themselves. I want them to feel comfortable in the kitchen, and without me, so I tried to play it cool, but he’s my firstborn, the oldest child, and only son. He has no idea that I’m terrified every single day.

“Yeah, I thought it sounded good. I mean we don’t have school so …” and he trailed off in search of Legos leaving the popcorn to its own devices. It was a snow day—the most sought-after and awaited moment in a child’s school career. For an unseasonably warm winter, this last-minute education cancellation was met with hoots and hollers, and, apparently, popcorn.

“Hey buddy, you can’t leave a stove unattended,” I said. “You have to watch your popcorn to make sure it doesn’t burn.”

He wandered back to the kitchen in his red plaid dinosaur pajamas as the kernels began to explode beneath the glass lid—each one a percussion of childhood expectations. We didn’t say much. He watched the popcorn. I watched him. I never taught him how to make this. I never once sat him down, and said, this is how you turn on a stove, and this is how much popcorn you use. I never forbade him from touching the stove, but I never encouraged him to use it either, not knowingly.

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We didn’t have much of a culinary legacy in my house growing up. My dad worked days as a welder at Drake-Williams Steel and my mom worked nights as a cashier at K-Mart in the small city of Omaha, Nebraska. We ate typical family foods of the 1980s—pot roast, dried out chicken, and spaghetti. So much spaghetti. One box of noodles, one jar of Ragu sauce, and a family of five was served a meal in less than 20 minutes for under $3. We did have a garden, and we ate from it all summer long, but on the whole my mother did not share Julia Child’s culinary ambitions. I once asked her to teach me how to cook in high school, and she said, “I’m never going to teach you how to cook because then a man will never expect you to.” By then my parents were divorced, my mom remarried, and gave birth to three additional children. Spaghetti dinner or hot dogs were the norm, and the garden had all but vanished. I can’t blame her for not having boeuf bourguignon on her radar.

When I look back on food memories that create a fondness for the kitchen, I think of the garden, yes, but I most frequently recall the junk food-fueled television nights with my dad. They usually involved a trip the store where my brothers and I each selected our favorite flavor packet of Kool-Aid or cans of Shasta Cola, and everything was the same color of orange—American cheese, Velveeta, mac and cheese, cheese puffs....

On the nights my mom worked, my dad made popcorn on the stovetop. He poured each of us a glass of Kool-Aid, which cost 10 cents a packet and made a pitcher of glowing sugar water that would last the next 24 hours. We’d pile onto our couch with our 9x13" cake pans and cookie sheets doubling as dinner trays to watch the sitcom, The Greatest American Hero. (My older brother, who was the same age then as my son is now, had begged my mom to perm his hair so he could look like the lead actor, William Katt. She did. He didn’t.) We ended the night by chugging what neon liquid remained in our cups, complete with rainbow mustaches, and fighting over who got to eat the partially popped old maids in the bottom of the bowl.

Courtesy of The Kraft Heinz Company

I know my parents never worried that food coloring could lead to allergies or ADHD or the end of civilization as we know it. They didn’t question the universal orange in most of our junk food or worry that we would develop bad eating habits that would plague us for life. If anything, they may have been concerned about cavities in our teeth, but only because they didn’t want to pay to fill them. They had other things to think about, like keeping the lights on and the brown Ford van they drove full of gas. They didn’t question giving us Kool-Aid with dinner, and I’m pretty sure we spent every day in the summer sucking down plastic tubes of frozen ice pops.

I have a fondness for these treats, in a way that other people might reminisce about apple pies made fresh at grandma’s house. My children have certainly enjoyed their fair share of candy, but they have never actually tasted Kool-Aid or indulged in the processed cheese-flavored smorgasbord. It’s just not a tradition that survived my childhood, but thankfully, at least on mornings like this, the popcorn did.